Speaking

Very happy to announce the arrival of this not-so-little baby which has been brewing for many years.

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Breathing Life Back into the Full-Stop

It’s one of those things you don’t even realise you’re doing until you listen back to a recording of your voice. There it is : “My first introduction to… umm.. technology was in school when…umm.. my teacher installed our first PC”. It’s more likely you’ve found yourself quite annoyed as an audience member or listener when you’ve heard someone else do this, am I right?

As a subject-matter-expert, blogger or industry professional you will be asked to speak in front of an audience, or perhaps do an interview for a newspaper, magazine, blog, podcast or online course. For speaking engagements, it comes with the territory to be well rehearsed and spend time preparing. But – with interviews, you’re less likely to be so prepared.

In conversation, sometimes we unconsciously try to keep control of our turn to speak by adding in ‘umm’ instead of a graceful pause – because we’re not ready to give the other person their turn to speak!

First here’s the MOST important thing to remember: The full-stop deserves to live. It is a character (with feelings?) JUST like all the other characters you so lovingly enunciate. So – don’t kill it off with an ‘umm’. Take a beat… take a breath… just say “____” (nothing). This gives the audience/listener a chance to catch their thoughts too!

For interviews, follow these handy hints to ensure you’re well prepared and less likely to fill the gaps with ‘umm’:

If you’ve followed my speaking tips for a while, you’ll be up to speed with this one : remember this isn’t about YOU. If you’re stuck in your own head, worrying about how you sound/look/come across, you’ll trip on your words and fall back on ‘um’. You’re the VEHICLE for the message you’ve been asked to talk about. SERVE the audience/listeners. Calmly and concisely.

Ensure you know the REASON you’re doing the interview. Is it just a favour for a friend or colleague? If so, let them direct you about what insights/info they want to draw out of you. They don’t have to provide you with all the questions – because that can make an interview sound wooden – but if you understand the CONTEXT, you’ll be more prepared.

If you’re concerned with nerves, you can boost your CONFIDENCE by remembering that you were asked to do this interview because you’re the expert in the topic! The interviewer has chosen YOU for a reason. That’s all the tick of approval you need in order to banish the negative thoughts about whether you’ll be able to answer the questions.
Download my guide to getting rid of Speaking nerves forever.

Ensure the interviewer introduces you properly. You should provide the INTRODUCTION for them which positions you perfectly as the person who is about to be interviewed. Think of the introduction as ‘earning you the right’ in the audience’s eyes to be the one being profiled in the interview.

As mentioned before, it’s difficult to rehearse for interviews – but you CAN ask your family or colleagues to throw a few general, random questions at you and practice answering them without an UM as the start of your sentence.

What other tips would you add to let the full stop live? Join the Small Business Pow Wow group on Facebook to continue the discussion!

Number 1 Fear

Download a handy PDF of these tips and a whole page of extra tips from speakers from around the globe.

This is my 21st year of Professional Speaking, and when you’ve been doing something that long, people are bound to ask you questions, right? Of all the questions people ask me about Speaking, ‘how to kill nerves’ has got to be the No.1 by far. Apparently the fear of public speaking is in the top 5 fears, along with DEATH?

The first thing to do is to remember : IT IS NOT ABOUT YOU. Nervous Speakers are too often caught up in their own head, being their own worst enemy and have lost sight of the fact that they are simply a vehicle for the message they are gifting to the audience. When you remember you’re SERVING the audience and you’ve been put on the conference program by the event planner who has done their research and chosen YOU – you’ve earned the right to be on that stage.

When I’m coaching Speakers, I find a combination of breathing, preparation and strategy to be the perfect antidote to nerves….

Breathing techniques

Totally under-rated: taking a few deep breaths as you are waiting in the wings. Speakers and Performers commonly say this is their number 1 go-to tip.

There are Speakers who have a ritual of tribal, loud, open-mouthed screaming and jumping up and down in the bathrooms before they go on stage. Sounds a bit Tony Robbins, but it certainly works for them! I tried it once but it wasn’t for me. How about you?

There’s a great NLP technique I learned from Colin James called Identify, Objectify, Banish where you take a moment to stop and recognise the feeling you’re having (Identify it).. then you bring it to life (Objectify) by imagining it as an object. He imagines a lizard on his shoulder. Finally you imagine the object disappearing (Banish).. you virtually flick it off your shoulder. This works to bring you back to the present and your breathing will automatically return to a calm pace.

Preparation, preparation, preparation

This sounds like a cliché but I wrote it 3 times to show how important it is. I’ve delivered over 500 talks in 21 years I’ve been Speaking and there have certainly been times where I’ve felt completely crushed about how it went. I’ve taken the stage full of nerves, stumbled through my talk, not been completely present and been determined not to take Q & A at the end in case someone stumped me.

The common denominator for every one of those talks has been a lack of preparation. I’m not talking about rehearsing your talk – if you’ve followed the 3 x 3 x 3 framework for writing a keynote you should truly be able to do a 40 minute talk without any notes at all.

To be totally prepared:

Research the client well: their challenges, the challenges of the people in the audience, the industry. More often than not, I will ask the client to put me in touch with 3-5 people who are likely to be in the audience for my talk so I can talk directly with them about their challenges.

Research your topic as it relates to this audience. For example if I’m talking about Social Media for Independent Cinemas, I’ll spend hours researching what Independent Cinemas are doing around the world, looking for great case studies, remarkable ideas, I’ll look outside the industry into others like Independent booksellers or boutique clothing stores to spark ideas.

It is always my preference to arrive at the conference the night before my talk so I have a chance to attend other talks and, most importantly, mingle with the delegates at welcome parties/events or even morning tea breaks so I can understand the sorts of conversations they are having with each other and ask a few questions about their day to day challenges. I will then weave these into my speech where relevant.

Panels & Facilitated Interviews

If you’ve ticked all of the boxes above, you’re still overthinking things and unable to reduce your anxiety further, there is a magic trick you can pull out of your hat : ask the event organiser if you can be part of a Panel or if the MC can interview you instead. You can provide the MC with 5-10 questions as a guide they can use to draw out all the insights you were planning to put into your presentation. This is the fail-safe way to get you up onto that stage.

Download a handy PDF of these tips and a whole page of extra tips from speakers from around the globe, grab my guide.

Number 1 Public Speaking Challenge

I’ve been speaking professionally for around 17 years and coaching speakers for more than 10. The most common challenge facing those speakers is dealing with nerves. I’ve developed my own techniques and tweaked those I’ve learned from speakers around the world and I have distilled them down to 3 guaranteed ways you can banish public speaking nerves forever and build your speaking and presenting confidence.

In this resource, I explain :

How to use a breathing technique specifically to calm your nerves. Sometimes our heads are spinning, caught up in the ‘what-if’. Breathing mindfully will bring you back to the present and your anxiety will minimise.

The sure-fire way to guarantee more confidence EVERY time you speak is to be truly PREPARED. This means doing your research about the client, industry, audience and topic. Even though I’ve been speaking for nearly 20 years I still experience nerves from time to time. Every one of those times it is due to being less prepared than I should.

A quick and easy solution for those who want to EASE their way into speaking: ask the conference organiser if you can be on a PANEL instead of up on stage alone.

In the Banish Public Speaking Nerves Guide I expand on these 3 techniques and also include a bonus page full of tips from my most respected speaking colleagues from around the world.

People, mindset, relationships are at the very centre of everything we do.

You have to give the client what they want, but on the day, you’ve got to give them what they NEED.

The magical power of laughter.

‘If I can get you to laugh at me, you’ll like me better. If I can get you to laugh at a particular point I make, you acknowledge its truth’ John Cleese

Whether keynote speakers should do the same amount of pre-work as MCs.

The importance of improvisation skills (impro) for performers and ANYONE who needs to make quick decisions. In fact, Zara suggests we should have impro drop-in classes just like a yoga studio or gym. Visit www.impromelbourne.com.au and join a class in the meantime!

How to get into character when storytelling on stage. How important it is to FEEL the words you’re speaking / honor the language you are using.

Giving life to the PAUSE and all the magical ways you can use it.

We hear about the ‘kit bag’ of things we COULD do, and we’ll start with our script but pull things in from the kit bag if needed.

The different mindset needed for Keynote Speaking Vs MCing.

How to handle obstacles like floorplans, seating, AV. Before and DURING the event.

‘Vulnerability brings us together. We ADMIRE people who have it all together, but we RELATE to people who have a struggle and emotional range.’

Tips for overcoming nerves.

Eckhart Tolle : nervousness is selfishness. It isn’t about YOU. Your job is to make it about the AUDIENCE. When we share stories on stage, the goal is to awaken something in the audience. To entertain a new idea. You’re using your story as a context to evoke that response in an audience.

The magic formula for having your message stick. Why ‘delivering data’ is completely ineffective compared to using a story to give your point context.

Storytelling can assist to bypass judgement from the audience.

I put Zara and Troy on the spot for a bit of role play to demonstrate the difference between ‘delivering data’ and ‘using stories’. When they are doing this, FEEL the difference yourself.

Every time you become an explorer / an interviewer in your own life, you gain knowledge and you connect faster. The message lands quicker.

The value of using webinars to add value to your speaking negotiations.

How to handle the inevitable crash speakers face after the high-energy of a multi day conference and the importance of scheduling down time.

They are living proof you don’t always need a sophisticated Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn or website presence to have a successful business.

‘We just follow the leads’.

Zara says : Understand the responsibility of being on that stage. You can put people on a path to reinventing themselves and there’s a flow on effect in the world to that.

Troy says: Do your prep. Do your research but ALSO don’t be afraid to be in the moment.

One of the best things about being such an experienced Professional Speaker (read: been doing it a LONG LONG TIME) is that I’ve come across such a wide array of Speakers and can authentically refer other Speakers to my clients. I never refer a Speaker I haven’t seen.

Clients will show me their near-complete Speaker program and ask for advice about a Speaker who would fit perfectly with that program or who covers a certain topic. Recently I was referred by two different fellow Speakers (thanks Andrew and Trevor) to a client for an upcoming conference on a cruise. After speaking to the client we realised I’d be better suited to a series of webinars than this particular conference cruise. The client was also specifically looking for an experienced but gentle Sales Speaker and I instantly thought of the brilliant David Penglase. One day later I received a grateful thank-you message from David saying he and wife Liz would be enjoying a few days on the water with this client!

Just last week I was MC of a 3 day event which came up simply because my mate Steve Sammartino (Marketing/Tech speaker) suggested me to the client. At the event I was able to refer Trevor Young as a speaker on Content Marketing for the next event! What goes around truly does come around, no?

I’m doing a Social Media Marketing presentation as part of a roadshow with a huge client later in the year and they asked for suggestions for Celebrity MCs. I figured I’d share my suggestions here too!

These are people I’ve worked with (or near) and would highly recommend. Go through your preferred Speakers Bureau to check their availability.

6 Ways to Ensure Action After Your Event

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